Whispering Nickel Idols

13

I went back to hunting the man whose birthday was the excuse for the gathering.

I stole a candle, lit it, slipped into the pie pantry. There he was, slumped in a wheelchair, looking two decades older. “These aren’t the best circumstances,” I told him. There was barely room for all of us and the wheelchair. “But I promised Harvester Temisk that I’d do what I could. That guy is your best friend.” Near as I could tell. A few years in my racket will leave a saint cynical about the motives of nuns. Too many people don’t have a pimple of conscience to slow them down.

Chodo did not move, twitch, or demonstrate any awareness of my presence.

A kitten did meow nearby. I took that to be a good omen. But there was a scurry as a rat took an opposing view.

“I wish there was a way to tell if your mind is alive in there. But I can’t get you away someplace where we could work on it.” Speaking of out, there my candle went. I headed over where there was enough light to see while I relit the candle. Somebody hustled past, duck waddling with a huge pot. “Smells good,” I told him.

He clomped onward, dead silent. I don’t think he agreed.

There was a lot of new racket as the catering crew arrived. I wouldn’t have much more time with Chodo.

I ducked back into the pie pantry. “You didn’t sneak away when you had the chance.” Chodo hadn’t done anything but breathe. Which was good. Real good. Because, all of a sudden, I had an awful spooky feeling.

Something wasn’t right. And I didn’t know how to make sense of it. Or figure out what it was.

I dropped to my knees so I could look Chodo in the eyes. They were open. They blinked. But they weren’t seeing anything. They weren’t blinking out messages. I told him to blink once for yes and twice for no, then asked questions. He blinked yes at random.

Was his brain alive at all? Temisk thought so, but I saw no evidence here. If I had him stashed somewhere safe, I could study and experiment on him. Or I could take him home and put him in with the Dead Man. Old Bones would wake up someday.

Yelling broke out not far off. Time to get back on the job. One last experiment, though. To see if he felt anything. “Nothing personal here, Chief.” I touched the candle flame to the outside of his left wrist.

The pie pantry filled up with burned-hair smell.

Chodo did nothing. I could’ve roasted him whole if I wanted.

Voices were almost close enough to be understood.

The candle went out. Snap! That sudden, without a breath of air in motion.

A shriek came from the kitchen.

“Got to go, Boss.”

Burned-hair and burned-meat smells hit me. In the scullery I found people standing around a smoldering rat. But the screaming came from the kitchen proper. Voices yelled the sort of things people do in an emergency where nobody knows what should be done, but everybody wants somebody to do something.

The burned-flesh smell was stronger there. I heard a crackle like bacon frying.

Water flew through the air. A slim tide washed my toes, then receded. The crackle of bacon lost its zeal.

People made unhappy noises. I recognized some as part-time kitchen help of Morley’s. “Out of the way!” I barked. “If you’re not doing something useful, change your luck by getting the hell out of the way.”

I got through. Somebody calmer than most had rolled a heavy woman in wet tablecloths. A couple guys kept dousing her with water. She kept screaming. She was on fire under those wraps, somehow. The bacon sizzle was all her. Buckets of water rapidly slowed that down.

Morley appeared. “What’s happening?”

I shook my head and shrugged, then nudged a couple men who were supposed to be setting tables. “Hoist her into the tub where the beer kegs are cooling. After the kegs are out.”

That bacon crackle was coming back.

The woman never stopped screaming.

She went into the ice bath as Belinda Contague arrived. The woman went silent as the fire finally died. She would hurt for a long time, though, if she was burned as badly as I suspected.

Belinda eased close. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. It started before I got here. Looks like she caught on fire somehow.” I raised my voice. “Anybody see how this started?”

“People don’t catch on fire, Garrett.” She didn’t sound convinced, though.

“Check her out. Tell me I’m wrong.” They lifted the woman out of the ice bath. She was unconscious. The crackling didn’t start up again.

A short man in an apron, with nervous hands, told us, “I was here first. Because she started yelling. She was beating on herself. I thought she’d caught her clothes on fire. I wrapped the wet tablecloths around her.”

Naturally. No witnesses to how it started. The stoves? It was a kitchen setting up to serve a banquet.

“Belinda, you got a healer laid on? She’ll need a shit-load of help.”

The Contagues’ underworld reign is characterized by care for its foot soldiers. Those who keep faith find the Boss looking out for them in the crunch. Chodo understood two-way loyalty instinctively. He took care of his people and they took care of him. Belinda stuck to the precedent.

She told me, “I’ll have her cared for. What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I thought I saw a rat.”

“You’re in the city now. They haven’t caused any trouble.”

Belinda kept toward the pie pantry. She wanted to check on her father, but she didn’t want to be seen doing it.

She eased away. I paid no attention. The burned woman was being stripped. A challenge. Bits of clothing had become embedded in her flesh. The burned fabric seemed to have acted as wicks for burning off body fat.

Weird. Creepy. Yet the physical evidence couldn’t be denied.

A couple kittens seemed extremely interested in the burned woman. They kept darting out to sniff her and touch her with their paws.

Belinda was back. “What do you want to happen here?” I asked. She looked mad enough to chew rocks.

“Get her over to the Bledsoe? Find out her family situation? I don’t know. Why do I have to worry about this stuff?”

“Because it’s your party. Because you’re in charge. Because you’re the one who’s going to get blamed.”

Belinda indulged in a bout of creative linguistics, then demanded, “Why doesn’t somebody do something about the rats?”